Barangay Muzon is the largest barangay in the city of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan--even in the entire Region III. It is now separated into four different and independent barangays namely: Barangay Muzon Proper, Barangay Muzon East, Barangay Muzon West and Barangay Muzon South under House Bill 5855 authored by Congresswoman Rida Robes.
I lived in Barangay Muzon for my entire life. I have seen the past elections where politicians are going to our house to ask for my Lolo's help for their campaign. I have seen the changes in our subdivision from a street-friendly neighborhood to a crowded one. I have also seen some people leave our community, going places I've never been.
As I currently live here, I have chosen this as the target community for my survey. I think this is also a big help to have an insight of what are the current problems of my barangay. Also, this survey can help the Samahan ng Kabataang Muzueño (SKM) in their future endeavors as an active youth organization. SKM is a barangay-based organization where I am currently serving as the head of the Multimedia and Publicity Committee.
On a survey I conducted from March 25 to March 27, I sent the survey form to the people I know who are always on the ground of our barangay and in our barangay hall. These people are part of different youth organizations.
The following are the information of the 10 respondents.
This is the report of the age preferences of the 10 respondents. Most of the respondents are 20 years old. The youngest is 18 while the oldest is 33 years old and is a public high school teacher.
Most of the respondents are studying as college students and their age bracket is from 18 to 22. The two college graduates are 24 and 33 years old. Those college students are mostly scholars and currently studying in public universities.
There are 10 respondents and they were made up of 6 females, 2 males, 1 prefers not to say and 1 LGBTQIA+. Most of these respondents are from the SKM.
In order to gather information from the people, I created a survey form with two sections. The first section is about the profile of the respondents while the second is about the problems inside our barangay they think is the biggest and those that should be resolved immediately.
On the first question of the second section of my survey, I prepared ten commonly presumed issues inside Barangay Muzon. These problems are what I mostly encounter as, lately, I am mostly spending my hours in the office of our Sangguniang Kabataan where I am functioning as a PIO. I am also open to these social issues as I am a member of an active barangay-based youth organization.
The top four problems are teenage pregnancy, poor government actions, inadequate medical services and traffic jam.
According to the results, 8 out of the 10 respondents picked Teenage Pregnancy as the most common problem inside our barangay. Even though I do a verbal survey among the youth and even adolescents and adults, teenage pregnancy is still the main problem they will say. Based on my own experience, I had some former classmates from elementary and high school who are now teenage mothers--most of them either stopped studying or do online selling.
The second and third problems will logically fall under the government's category. It can show that the barangay officials here would have a hard time fulfilling their citizens' needs such as medical services. Though they are performing the basic medical interventions such as the required vaccines for infants, what makes this issue more complicated is the poor reach of information and announcement to most citizens.
Meanwhile, these are the results of the second question of my survey. In this, the respondents have the freedom to state the problems they want to address immediately either mentioned in the first question or not. The top three problems are Teenage Pregnancy, No Access to Waterlines and Illegal Drugs.
To point out the second and third main problems, not all places here in Barangay Muzon has access to waterlines. There is a project here called "Tawid Uhaw" which was stationed in different places of a subdivision, such as mine. This program aims to reach subdivisions with no access to waterlines where households usually don't have faucets in their homes. But still, it is not quite effective as the prices are too high like the P3.00 price for the size of a blue container of mineral water. This can still be too high for some lesser fortunate families as they need more water.
For the last years, many have been imprisoned from our barangay due to involvement in illegal drugs. But, the barangay officials here are implementing programs to seek the attention of the youth such as our Sangguniang Kabataan's seminar against the usage of illegal drugs and tournament games like chess, mobile legends, basketball and volleyball.
Conclusion
Barangay Muzon is the most populous barangay in San Jose del Monte. One of the reasons for dividing our barangay into four is the goal of better management and allocation of resources.
As a citizen of this barangay, it alarms me to hear this kind of issue occurring mostly in youth, teenage pregnancy. I firmly believe that having a child and family is a gift from above. But, all of it should be limited to the extent of considering its consequences. Most of the teenage mothers that I know have either stopped studying or ended up living a stressful life. Still, as typical parents, they keep on moving forward to give their child a better future.
With this, I would like to call the attention of our barangay officials to take further action regarding teenage pregnancy. Though this may seem too personal as the reason for having a child is either by choice or accident, our officials can still do something monumental.
Our barangay officials can emphasize the importance of family planning by conducting seminars that will jump from subdivisions to subdivisions for a better reach. They can also give contraceptives to household who would willingly take it. At the same time, people can practice safer sex lessening the fear of accidents during intercourse.
Most importantly, they should provide assistance for teenage parents who suffer from financial crises. They can create feasible livelihood programs that can have long-term effects.
We can't always prevent something from happening, but a better and more concrete plan can somehow lessen its magnitude.
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